PROFILE LINDA LOMAHAFTEWA

to and began working in oils. Astonishingly, Hopi Spirits and Unknown Spirits are two of her first , HOPI/CHOCTAW PRINTMAKER AND PAINTER completed when she was only 18 years old. They each express her connection to place through absence and presence. LINDA LOMAHAFTEWA An abstract vision of Hopi spirits gaze from an intimate distance outward and By Jean Merz-Edwards amplify Lomahaftewa’s absence from her home in . In contrast, a distant “For decades Linda has been a promi- Lomahaftewa, in the spring of 1961, “I got view of mountains—much like the Sangre nent figure in contemporary Native art. a phone call from my mom, and she read de Cristo Mountains visible from Santa Her paintings demonstrate a wonderful in the paper that they would be opening Fe—solidify Lomahaftewa’s presence in a strength informed by her culture placed up this new Indian art school in Santa Fe, place with unknown spirits. Finally, they in a contemporary context.”1 and it’ll be headed up by Lloyd New, who denote the starting point of a journey —Joe Feddersen (Okanagan/) was one of her teachers when she went centering Lomahaftewa within the story [to the] Phoenix Indian School.”3 That of Native American art. PPORTUNITY RARELY summer Lomahaftewa and her mother AFFORDS us the benefit of filled out the application. In the fall of CALIFORNIA DAYS visiting with a living legend. 1962, Lomahaftewa began her sophomore “I WAS TAUGHT to believe in myself, Whether it be the scarcity O year in the first high school class at the that’s how I grew up,” Lomahaftewa of such individuals or our proximity to Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). shares. “I was painting landscapes while them, an encounter with such a person As an IAIA student, Lomahaftewa they were painting from models.… I happens once in a lifetime—if we are developed skills under the guidance of lucky. Fortunately, within the world of teachers such as Allan Houser (Chiricahua explained myself to my teachers, and they Native American art, one need not look Apache), Charles and Otellie Loloma never bothered me again.” any further than Hopi/Choctaw artist (both Hopi), Lloyd Kiva New ( Long before decolonization entered and educator Linda Lomahaftewa for this Nation), (Luiseño), and popular culture’s vernacular, Linda experience. From her early days as part of Josephine Wapp (Comanche). Another Lomahaftewa embodied it as a college the avant-garde group who helped birth taught Linda how to sew. Clifford was a of Lomahaftewa’s teachers, the assistant student. In 1965 after her IAIA high school contemporary Native American art and member of the Sun Clan and regularly director of arts, James McGrath, wrote, graduation, Lomahaftewa headed to the throughout decades of a thriving career, took Linda and the rest of the family back “People working with her will be puzzled Art Institute in pursuit of Lomahaftewa has been central to the story to his home at Songòopavi on Second by her silence, but this is her strength. She her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine of Native American art. 4 Mesa. Linda’s parents and four siblings works, knows, and feels deeply.” arts. For the first time she encountered BEGINNINGS continually encouraged Linda in her art. The synergy among the talented European teaching methods for making Hopi Spirits (1965) and Unknown and emerging artists in those early days at art. Unlike the experimental approach of “FOR ME, the artistic process can be Spirits (1965) mark two of Lomahaftewa’s IAIA gave birth to a new art. Lomahaftewa IAIA where tribal identity grounded one’s recalls, “Painting was all experimental. described as unlearning and remem- earliest known works and illustrate her creations, SFAI’s approach rooted itself in There was no technique taught in the bering: ‘unlearning’ the overlay of connection with Hopiland. In Hopi European practices, like drawing from a class. We all learned from each other.… Landscapes, barren or occupied, European culture values and ‘remem- Spirits, abstracted figures represent Hopi live nude model and adhering to the rules They would bring visitors and show us show up again and again in Lomahaftewa’s bering’ the basics, where I receive my spirits. In Unknown Spirits, however, the of perspective. examples of other people’s work, but when art and appear distinctively original. In strength …” Lomahaftewa once wrote. abstracted subject matter does not so it was time to paint, they said, ‘Go for it!’ The miraculous thing is that Pink Clouds and Desert, painted in 1970 at “My imagery comes from being Hopi and easily reveal itself. A layer of white-over- … As a group, we were making contempo- Lomahaftewa gently and successfully SFAI, three pink clouds correspond with remembering the shapes and colors from dark underpainting in the upper third of 5 resisted this approach. Sure, she appre- rary Native American art.” Classmates in one another through their curvilinear, Crescent Moon XIV, ceremonies and landscape.”2 above the canvas moves downward to meet with this group, many of whom would become ciated and learned from the different biomorphic forms as they hover above a 1999, monotype on paper, 151/8 Since her post-World War II birth peak-like structures. These peaks crown lifelong friends, included Earl Biss aesthetic presented. Who doesn’t landscape comprised of colors, patterns, × 111/8 in., collection of the IAIA in Phoenix, Arizona, Lomahaftewa’s the variations of blue, grey, and plum Museum of Contemporary (Crow), T. C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo), appreciate the colors and shapes of a and shapes that work together to create a Native Arts, H-396. Both images connection to family and place remains that dance in a mist of white, similar to Karita Coffey (Comanche), Phyllis Fife Kandinsky masterpiece? However, she did formation that recalls patchwork quilts. courtesy of the IAIA Museum of a theme in life and work. Her parents, mountains in a snowstorm. (Muscogee), Hank Gobin (Tulalip), and not succumb to the story of a universal This style speaks about the artist’s rela- Contemporary Native Arts. Mary (Choctaw) and Clifford (Hopi, Taken together, Hopi Spirits and Kevin Red Star (Crow), among others. aesthetic in the guise of a masculine, tionship with place, her home back in opposite Linda Lomahaftewa. Photo: Jason Ordaz. 1920–2002), met at Phoenix Indian School. Unknown Spirits offer insight into the During her senior year, Lomahaftewa European art. A teacher once asked if she Arizona, and her relationship with her Mary, who sews quilts and ribbonwork, artist’s early training. According to changed her major from commercial art knew what she was doing—painting a mother, an avid quilter. Coincidentally,

1. Joe Feddersen, email to author, August 18, 2019. landscape with corn and other things she while Lomahaftewa painted this work 2. Linda Lomahaftewa, “Artist’s Statement,” in After 5 P.M. … and on Weekends (Santa Fe: Institute of American Indian Arts, 1991), 39. knew—while her classmates painted from in San Francisco, three hours away, Judy 3. Transcript of Oral History Project, 2008, IAIA-MS012.01, Linda Lomahaftewa archive file, Institute of American Indiana Arts, Santa Fe, NM. a model. Instead, she continued devel- Chicago was launching the first Feminist 4. Correspondence from Jim McGrath to the San Francisco Art Institute Scholarship Committee, n.d., Linda Lomahaftewa archive file, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM. oping an autonomous aesthetic rooted in Art Program—a program that celebrated 5. Unless otherwise noted, information and quotes attributed to Linda Lomahaftewa in this article derived from discussion with the author, August 2019. her connection to family and place. “woman’s craft”— at Fresno State College

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Native American artists connected with history, Lomahaftewa also participated Rupert Costo (Cahuilla) and Jeannette in the Occupation of Alcatraz while she Henry Costo in San Francisco. was a student in San Francisco. The young Rupert, who grew up on the artist exhibited work inspired by Alcatraz Cahuilla Reservation near Riverside, spent and Wounded Knee in exhibitions of his life advocating for Indigenous rights. politically-conscious artwork. Together, Rupert and Jeanette founded Fortunately some of Lomahaftewa’s the American Indian Historical Society art from her SFAI student days remain. and the Indian Journal in order “to correct The Heard Museum, which holds the record, to write history as it should be Lomahaftewa’s archives, has in its collec- written, to interpret correctly the aborig- tion a few majestic oil paintings from this inal past, to report honestly the immense period. IAIA also has a large collection of contributions to modern society made by works and documents from Lomahaftewa’s the Indian American.”6 prolific career, including SFAI work. In In their unwavering quest to 2017 IAIA exhibited a small collection educate the public, the couple “fought of various sketches from Lomahaftewa’s for the scholarly representation of Indians college notebooks. Consistent with her rather than the stereotypes they found general oeuvre, each sketch reflects the art prevalent”7 and helped establish the of a woman central to the story of Native American Indian Studies program in the American art, whether a colorful, moun- University of California system. Rupert tainous landscape or a conglomeration of and Jeannette Henry Costo connected anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures the young IAIA alumni with the greater that emerge from intricate ink patterns to Native American arts community in the form a surreal landscape. Bay Area. Under the mentorship of the Costos, Lomahaftewa exhibited her work with the American Indian Historical THE TEACHING YEARS Society in San Francisco among other “I TELL MY STUDENTS that individu- venues in California. ality and the ability to reach deep within According to Lomahaftewa, a rich their cultures is what’s important,” says the studio arts program until her retire- of artists who have passed through IAIA sharing of cultures occurred between Lomahaftewa. “It’s fine to copy the style ment in May of 2017. During her 41-year under her guidance.”9 the Native artist community in the Bay of another painter as an experiment, but tenure at IAIA, Lomahaftewa raised Logan Within a few years of being back it’s important to achieve a unique style of Area and the IAIA alumni studying at and Tatiana (now curator of collections at in Santa Fe, Lomahaftewa returned to the San Francisco Art Institute. In these your own.”8 IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native the canvas—this time in acrylic. Acrylics exchanges, Lomahaftewa met Frank After earning her MFA in 1971 Arts), taught thousands of students, and afforded Lomahaftewa the opportunity LaPeña (Nomtipom Wintu) and Harry from the San Francisco Art Institute, grew into a prolific artist before advancing of a quick-drying and less expensive Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu) who would Lomahaftewa took her first full-time into the most important period of her medium, something the young profes- become her close, lifelong friends. Before teaching position as an assistant professor artistic career. sional and mother needed. She drew his passing earlier this year, LaPeña was of Native American art at Sonoma State At the 2017 commencement cere- inspirations from the Awatovi and Pottery (now University of California, Fresno). working with Lomahaftewa to exhibit College (now Sonoma State University) in mony, IAIA awarded Lomahaftewa an Mound sites. Within the larger student body work in When I Remember I See Red: Rohnert Park. Teaching and commuting honorary doctorate of humanities. IAIA In the 1980s Lomahaftewa experi- at the San Francisco Art Institute, American Indian Art and Activism in between Sonoma and San Francisco President Robert Martin (Cherokee enced what she calls an “artist’s slump,” Lomahaftewa belonged to a smaller, California. The show will open at the were balanced with mothering daughter above Untitled, ca. 1965–1975, Nation) stated during the ceremony, where her painting came to a near watercolor and ink on paper, close-knit group of Native American Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento on Tatiana (b. 1969) and son Logan (b. 1973), 9 ¾ x 6 ¼ in., collection of the art students, many of whom had also October 20, 2019. a remarkable feat. In 1974 Lomahaftewa “Linda Lomahaftewa is being honored standstill. She has often spoken of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary for her accomplishments as an artist and challenges to balancing personal and Native Arts, H-396. attended high school at IAIA. Friends like Consistent with her quiet way, transitioned into the role of professor of Earl Biss, T. C. Cannon, Doug Hyde (Nez Lomahaftewa’s form of activism shows up painting and drawing at the University her lasting contributions to the Institute professional commitments, and at this opposite Unknown Spirits, of American Indian Arts for the past 41 time in her life she needed to find a 1965, oil on canvas, 51¾ × Perce, tribally designated artisan), Hank gently and poetically in her art. Beyond of California, Berkeley, in the Native 49¾ in., collection of the IAIA Gobin, and Kevin Red Star provided the resisting European narratives at SFAI, American studies department. years. Lomahaftewa’s mark on the field new way. Craig Locklear (Lumbee), the Museum of Contemporary much-needed support for her in this new making art in a style that feminist artists While she thrived in California, of American and Native American art is instructor at IAIA, seren- Native Arts, H-12. Both images one achieved by very few women artists. dipitously convinced Lomahaftewa to courtesy of the IAIA Museum of and unfamiliar place at SFAI. As part of were only beginning to embrace, and Lomahaftewa yearned to be closer to Contemporary Native Arts. settling into this new environment, the befriending some of the most significant family and to Hopi. After a year of recruit- This honorary doctorate recognizes her try printmaking and taught her mono- group of young, emerging, contemporary figures from Native American art and ment by IAIA, she moved back to Santa Fe contributions to the field of Native art and type techniques. Although it took her a and in the fall of 1976 began teaching in her role in the education of generations while to learn, this new medium allowed 6. Ian Chambers, “The History of Native American Studies at the University of California Riverside,” in Indigenous Nations Journal 2, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 84. 8. Richard Sealey, “Impressionistic look at past symbols,” Santa Fe New Mexican (August 19, 1988): 49. 7. “Rupert Costo; American Indian Scholar Who Fought Stereotypes,” Los Angeles Times (October 23, 1989), 9. Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer, “Linda Lomahaftewa Receives Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from IAIA,” Canku Ota (Many Paths) 15, no. 7 (July 2017) accessed August accessed August 24, 2019, web. 21, 2019, web.

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on to earn her MFA degree whereas the Native men who went there at the same time all dropped out. When Lloyd Oxendine wrote that memorable article on contemporary Native art for Art in America in 1972, Linda was the only woman that he mentioned out of some- thing like 24 men. All these years she has taught and nurtured Native students, many who have gone off in the world to carry on her wonderful teachings.” Smith concludes, Recently she received a well-deserved honorary doctorate from IAIA. Linda is a hero and a role model in my book. She has continued to make paintings and prints that are all about beauty. She is the true example of a Woman Warrior. first International Indigenous Wānanga great-grandmother, and great-grand- representing Lomahaftewa’s place in the It wasn’t easy for a Native woman back Symposium of Contemporary Visual Arts father, whom she knew. This portrait Hopi Water clan—fuse with the artist’s then and especially making a life as an where she worked together with Māori is duplicated and adapted into various emerging, artistic vocabulary derived artist and raising children alone too. and Pacific Islander artists. She recalls, abstract “ghost prints” of places marked from the Southeast and her Choctaw Always kind, gracious, with a good heart, “There was a cultural sharing of history with various Eastern Woodlands designs family. The blending of Hopi and Choctaw Linda has a contagious laugh and she where we all blended together through an and indexical marks. iconographic signs suggests a full-circle makes me feel good when I am with her. instant connection. We had similar stories These specific works materialized moment when Lomahaftewa intention- Anyone who knows Linda is truly blessed … creation stories where we respect other after a life-changing journey. In 2011 ally unites her paternal and maternal 10 people, nature, and the spirit world.” by her presence in their life. Lomahaftewa traveled with former lineage within the context of her art. In the late 1990s, new landforms student and close friend America In the late 1980s Lomahaftewa emerge in Lomahaftewa’s artwork. Meredith () to ancestral returned to photography and collage. In LOOKING AHEAD The landscape in Crescent Moon XIV mound sites across eight Southeastern contrast with her earlier work, such as the (1999)—one that contains a hilly, raised THESE DAYS, besides spending as much portrait Maria Martinez and Frank LaPeña states. In Mississippi, Lomahaftewa area—suggests a deeply rooted connection time as she can with family, Lomahaftewa (1977), Lomahaftewa did not shoot the connected with the Choctaw Mother to her maternal Choctaw family and the Mound, Nanih Waiya in a personal way. 13 contemplates her Hopi and Choctaw photographs she used but instead used sacred mound sites of her Southeastern background through sketches of mixed historic portraits, like that of her Hopi Featured in the 2012 show, ancestors. The association was not at first media—paint, markers, collage—with a great-great-grandfather in Honanie (1989), Moundbuilders: Exploring the Ancient obvious to the artist, perhaps because deep understanding of what her Choctaw and inserted these figures into symbol- Southeastern Woodlands, Lomahaftewa’s Lomahaftewa spent most of her life in ancestors lost along the Trail of Tears. This laden, abstract landscapes that conjure up Year of the Dragon (2012) embodies the Southwest immersed in Hopi culture. the impact of her new awareness. The only drives her forward in the unfolding real places. In Honanie, the seated figure When friend and fellow artist Anita Fields monoprint includes familiar spirals and story of contemporary Native American Lomahaftewa “instant painting,” some- of Lomahaftewa’s relative floats within a (Osage/Muscogee) asked Lomahaftewa a dragonfly—however, new imagery also art. When asked about her best work, thing she needed as she balanced her roles desert landscape as a symbolic lightning about the “mound” in one of her mono- emerges. For example, the design of two she declares, “My best work is to come!” in life. Learning to monotype brought her bolt strikes him. This action lights up the types, Lomahaftewa recognized this winged serpents printed in bright red Fortunately we will have a chance to out of her slump. In the 1985 landmark sky in layers of bright yellows, oranges, topography had been “present all along.”12 derive directly from Mississippian pottery experience this and other works in her exhibition, Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar and reds, within an iridescent blue panel More overt connections to vessels excavated at the Moundville site in upcoming solo show at the IAIA Museum and Sage, curated by Jaune Quick-to-See that evokes rain clouds just beginning to her Choctaw heritage show up in Choctaw Bond Family I, of Contemporary Native Arts to be curated above Smith (Sqelix’u/Métis/Shoshone) and shower. In the distance beyond the figure’s Lomahaftewa’s work during the 2000s. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The combination 2012, monotype on paper. Both left side, a formation resembles Black of these images from the Southwest— by Lara Evans (Cherokee Nation) in 2021. images courtesy of the artist. Harmony Hammond, Lomahaftewa For example, Remembering Choctaw exhibited a monoprint. Mesa, while on his left another shape looks Ancestors (2010) features an anthropol- the spiral representing how the Hopitu It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity opposite Remembering Choctaw 11 to visit with a living legend. Ancestors, 2010, acrylic, “Linda has some stellar statistics in like a mountain. ogist’s photograph of stickball player Jim came into this world, and the dragonfly monoprint, paper, photocollage her long and illustrious career,” shared Lomahaftewa was an early collabo- Tubby (Mississippi Choctaw) from 1908 on canvas, 151/2 × 371/2 in. Smith. “When offered a scholarship rator with Indigenous peoples throughout recontextualized into a print of various LINDALOMAHAFTEWA.COM to the San Francisco Art Institute in the world. In 1995 she traveled to New Mississippian pottery designs. Likewise, California, though homesick, she went Zealand as a special guest artist at the a series titled Choctaw Bond Family Jean Merz-Edwards earned her master’s degree in art history from the University of (ca. 2012) features a family portrait of and was granted a certificate in women’s and gender studies and the Alice 10. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, email to author, August 24, 2019. 11. In a conversation with the author on March 14, 2014, Lomahaftewa shared that her great-great-grandfather was the artist’s grandmother, two uncles, Mary Robertson Award for her scholarship on the life and art of Linda Lomahaftewa. part of a Hopi delegation sent to , DC, in the late 19th century. For a more complete conversation about the symbolism in this and other art by Lomahaftewa, see: Jean C. Merz-Edwards, “Gender, Place, and 12. Linda Lomahaftewa in discussion with the author, March 15, 2014. Cultural Memory: Intersections of American National Identity and the Art of Hopi-Choctaw Artist Linda 13. For additional information about the sites visited, see America Meredith, “Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands,” Ahalenia: Native American Art History, Lomahaftewa” (master’s thesis, Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2014). Writing, Theory, and Practice, September 6, 2011, web.

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